As medicine expert, pharmacists play vital role on global health problems. Here are some glimpses of pharmacists as responders to global health problems:
Mental illnesses cause significant disease burden globally. Pharmacists are accessible and trusted healthcare professionals who have an important role in supporting people living with mental illness. The role of the pharmacist in mental health, as a specialized area of practice, has been described. Early descriptions of these roles include working with nurses and physicians in community mental health centers to optimize drug therapy, dispensing, and providing education regarding medicines. Community pharmacists are able to identify people at risk of mental health crises, screen for mental illness, run mental health promotion campaigns, and provide education to people living with mental illness.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) caused 29.6% of deaths globally as stated by the Global Burden of Disease. According to the WHO, members of the public either have modifiable risk factors and have not had an established CVD episode or patients already have an established CVD episode (e.g., myocardial infarction and stroke). Primary prevention involves improving awareness and early screening of the public for CVD risk conditions.
Pharmacists can provide initial risk assessments for risk factors and offer interventions such as weight management and smoking cessation programs. Secondary prevention in this model addresses diagnosed risk conditions to prevent the emergence of a cardiovascular disease. At this stage, pharmacists can offer services to optimize medicines for patients with heart failure take a number of high risk drugs such as anti-thrombotic, anti-arrhythmic drugs, diuretics and cardioprotective agents.
Pharmacists support the pharmacological management of these patients by evaluating their clinical condition and laboratory data. In Chiba University Hospital, a single pharmacist is in charge of both the cardiac care unit and the cardiovascular ward. From admission to discharge of a patient, the pharmacist performs various duties such as checking the patient's regular medications, conducting patient education, promoting appropriate prescriptions, overseeing the preparation of injection drugs, and providing drug information to medical staff.
Diabetes mellitus is one of the most common disease states, affecting 8.5% of the world’s population. One of the pharmacist's most important roles is the referral of patients to other members of the diabetes care team. Pharmacists collaborate closely with primary care physicians, registered nurses and physician assistants. This includes patients with newly diagnosed diabetes, long-standing diabetes, and those with controlled to severely uncontrolled disease. Reasons for referral to the pharmacist include the need for mediation adjustment, initiation of insulin or other injectable therapy, diabetes education, or the need for close monitoring and follow-up for high-risk patients.
Pharmacists are capable of acting as independent practitioners delivering direct patient care in areas such as asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, tuberculosis, interstitial lung disease, and sleep medicine. As experts in medicines, pharmacists are well-placed to identify drugs that may have contributed to the development of ILD, monitor antifibrotics and immunosuppressive medications, perform appropriate therapeutic drug monitoring, handle drug choice formulation queries, and detect and manage adverse effects. Pharmacists utilize their expertise in medicines to ensure patients receive the most appropriate treatments. Pharmacy, since its origin, has expanded in scope and complexity, encompassing all aspects of healthcare.
Today’s modern pharmacists play a critical role in ensuring the efficacy and safety of medical products. Pharmacists are generally stereotyped as medicine producers, pill pushers, bottle labelers, managers and entrepreneurs. A pharmacist entails addressing concerns about drug side effects, therapeutic alternatives to drugs, evaluating patient drug histories, and giving recommendations for over-the-counter medications, delivering drug information, medication management, medicine preparation and supply, patient counseling, and the design of pharmaceutical care plans in a way that is accessible to them.
This article is taken from the Galen Gazette, May 2024, Issue No. 01. The author, Fakhray Jahan Rimi, is a first-semester pharmacy student at Comilla University.
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